British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
